Same Difference
by dontstopnow
Summary: Robert's not sure who he is.  Nasir's not sure he's ever been anyone else.  And sometimes, he who speaks the least hears the most.


SAME DIFFERENCE

It had been raining for three days straight. The forest was alive with it, heavy with wet and the scent of green and growing things.

Overhead, leaves shifted in the canopy of the trees, sending down lingering sprays of damp along with dapples of weak spring sunlight, and underfoot the mud clung and slipped and threatened to send the unwary sprawling.

Robert hissed in annoyance as his booted foot slid on a moss-covered tree root, catching himself with one hand before he fell and swearing at the unhappy squelch of dead leaves beneath his fingers. Straightening, he shook the muck away and brushed his hand down the front of his damp jerkin, still scowling. He was cold and wet and he hadn't had a warm meal in days, not since the makeshift canopy that had protected their meagre campfire had given out and doused everything in water, including the pot that Tuck had been tending. The stew had been modest enough to start with, only a couple of scrawny rabbits and a handful of withered winter vegetables scavenged from an abandoned crofter's garden on the edge of the forest; the healthy fall of rain had only served to make it thinner, a feeble and watery broth. Robert was used to better.

"You'll want to watch yourself there, Robert." A smile that was more than part sneer flashed out of the shadows, mocking. "Can't have you landing on your noble arse in the mud, can we?"

"I've dealt with worse than mud, Will." Robert schooled his voice to calm, and hoped his face matched. Scarlet had been niggling at him all week, in one small way or another. Robert had hoped after their fight in Lichfield that he had proven himself well enough to Scarlet, and he had hoped the same thing after their raid on Clun Castle. Will Scarlet, though, was a difficult man to impress. It took more than a fist fight and one successful sortie to earn Will's respect, it seemed. It took more than a title and an earldom at one's feet, too. Will had made that abundantly clear. He did so again now, laughing as if he had heard something funny.

"Really? Wouldn't have thought they'd have mud in Huntingdon Castle. Wouldn't have thought your father the earl would stand for it."

"Carpets," Much said. The lad had come out of the trees behind Scarlet, carrying an armload of wood still dry enough to burn. Robert wondered where he had found it. Will gave the boy a narrow look.

"What're you on about?"

"Carpets. That's what they have in castles, ain't it?" Dumping the wood near the fire pit that Will was clearing, Much looked up at Robert, bright-eyed and curious. "Did you have carpets in Huntingdon, Robert? An' beds big enough to sleep a horse in, with a fire in every room?"

"Not quite, Much." Robert couldn't help but smile at the boy's enthusiasm. At least it made a change from Scarlet's sharp jibes. "There was one fine carpet in my father's solar, and a hanging in the great hall that he brought back with him from the Holy Land, but there were only rushes on my floor. And I don't know if you could have fit a horse into my bed – I never tried."

"Only rushes, eh?" Scarlet made a sour sound, still working on the fire, the damp wood giving him trouble. "Sounds a hard life, that."

"I never said it was a hard life, Will. I had my privileges…"

"I'll bet you did."

"…but I've turned my back on that. This is where I belong, now. Herne called me. I answered."

"Oh, aye?" Scarlet hit the flint in his hand harder than he needed to, sending sparks flaring. "And how long d'you reckon that'll last? 'Til winter sets in and the snows come…"

"I'm not scared of weather, Will."

"…or until the first time you get yourself caught by Gisburne and his men, and your father comes to buy your freedom?"

"Gisburne couldn't catch a cold."

Will turned to smile at him sweetly. "Well. I reckon we'll find out about that, won't we?"

Robert felt his jaw tighten and took a deep breath. The man was baiting him, that was all. He would not rise to it. "Just light the fire, Will."

"Yes, light the bleedin' fire, Will." John strode into the small camp, shaking water out of his shaggy hair. His sodden goatskin jerkin he had left spread over a rock near the fire pit before he had set out hunting. Now he prodded it with a discontented grunt at finding it no drier than before, and flung a brace of plump wood grouse down by Scarlet's boots. "I'm hungry, I am. What've you been doing, sleeping in? Waiting for the fairies to come and set the camp for you?"

"He's been needling Robert," came the arch reply. "Loudly, and at length." Tuck waddled his way up the slope, dragging a slopping bucket of water from the nearby brook. The fat friar stopped to adjust his grip on the rope handle and heave himself around a particularly troublesome tree, only for Nasir to appear silently from the forest and take the bucket from him without breaking stride. The Saracen had a pair of ducks hanging from his belt; Nasir always killed and prepared his own meat. Robert wondered if any of the others knew why. Tuck, freed of his burden, signed a blessing at Nasir's back then levelled a disapproving gaze at Scarlet. "He's been at it all morning."

Scarlet did not have the grace to look abashed. He grinned nastily at John. "No fairies here, mate. Only him." He cocked his head towards Robert. "God knows he's good for nothing else."

Tuck sighed, rolling eyes to the heavens. "Forgive him, O Lord. He knows not what he says."

"You'll apologise for that." Robert's voice had gone hard and cool. "Scathlock. Scarlet." He knew as soon as he spoke that it had come out wrong. He sounded exactly like what he was – a nobleman, talking down to a peasant soldier who had got himself out of line. He should have shouted instead, thrown insults back like a common foot soldier, even turned it into a joke and laughed it off: Scarlet would have tolerated any of those things, understood them. It was the lordling he could not stand, the earl's son. Now Scarlet glared at him, flint and fire forgotten.

"Damned if I will," he snarled. "And it's Scarlet. Don't you forget that. Scarlet!"

"Will," John said, laying one big hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Will," Robert began.

"Shut up!" Scarlet shrugged John's hand away, surging to his feet and rounding on Robert. "Who the hell do you think you are, coming here and telling us what to do and how to do it, like you was one of us? You ain't one of us, my lord of bleedin' Huntingdon, and like as not you never will be, Herne or no Herne. And d'you know why? 'Cos you were born one o' them, and that's all you know an' all you are. Bloody noblemen, too big for their boots and bleeding the country dry!"

"Herne called me, Will, and I answered! Do you think I like it any better than you do? Do you know how easy it would have been to stay in Huntingdon and forget I'd ever heard of the Lord of the Trees?"

"Why didn't you, then?" Will flung the words like stones. Robert recoiled, throwing up his hands.

"I don't know! I don't bloody know!" And, turning, he plunged into the forest.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Tuck breathed what sounded suspiciously like an oath and stamped his way to the still dead fire pit, slapping at Scarlet with one wide sleeve as he passed.

"Couldn't leave it alone, could you?"

John let out a low growl.

"Aye Will, you idiot, now see what you've done."

"What?" Will spun on him, indignant. "It's not my fault if he flounces off like a girl in a sulk at the first sign of a proper argument, is it?"

"It is when you've been at him for days with my lord of Huntingdon this and my lord of Huntingdon that." John scrubbed a hand through his beard and glowered at Will in disgust. "It's hard for him, this is."

"He'll come back, won't he?" Much looked up at John, big-eyed. He had quickly got used to the outlaws being together again, even with Marion gone and Robert of Huntingdon in their midst. This was his family. He'd been lonely at Hathersage, tending John's small flock of sheep and keeping out of sight of the local lords. Sherwood was better. Now he looked anxiously from John to Will and back again. "Won't he?"

"Aye lad, he will." John spared another filthy glance for Will and turned to pick up his staff. "You see to the birds, and get that fire going. I'll find Robert."

"No." The quiet voice surprised them all. Much swung to stare at the Saracen – Nasir seldom spoke above half a dozen words in a day, and Much did not think he'd said even that much since their return from Clun Castle. Much did not think the others had noticed, but there had been something different about Nasir since they had come back to Sherwood. The man had always been intimidating in his black leather with his arsenal of blades strapped about him, and distant with his silence and strange ways, but of late he had seemed thoughtful, as if something was weighing on his mind. In the last week, when Much woke in the mornings to find the Saracen gone – morning prayers, he'd told them once, when they'd asked – he had never quite been sure that the man would come back. Now Nasir said, "I will go."

"Naz?" John gave the dark man a quizzical look. Nasir quirked an eyebrow right back, pausing only to set aside the bird he'd started to pluck. Will laughed, a harsh, disbelieving sound.

"Oh, that's perfect, that is. You two can sit in the forest together and not say a bloody word, him in a sulk, and you doing the silent thing, until the crows come home. How's that going to help matters?"

"Maybe there's been enough words," Tuck suggested, looking at Nasir with consideration in his eyes. "Maybe silence could help."

"What? Saying nothing, that's your answer?" Scarlet blinked, puzzled. "Then why go out there at all? Stay here and wait for him to come back. He will, when he gets hungry enough. Those birds John brought back look tasty. And you don't need two ducks all for yourself now, Naz, do you?"

Nasir's lips twitched a very little. It might have been a smile. "Will," he said, moving past the others into the trees, "You talk too much."

* * *

When Robert had left the camp, he'd had no idea where he was going. He had no idea now, either; the forest confounded him still, with its twisting game trails and dense thickets. The others moved through this place as if it were no more a mystery than the nearest village common, but Robert still found himself snagged by brambles or tripped by creepers or up to his knees in mud at least twice a day. An earl's son, he had hunted in forests before, for boar or pigeon, sending beaters on ahead, a spear in his hand or a falcon on his wrist. But he had done so from horseback, as befitted a proper nobleman; he had not gone stumbling about on foot like some base peasant. Nor had any hunting party of his ever ventured so deep into the trees. Not for the first time, Robert of Huntingdon wondered what he had got himself into.

The first time he had come to Sherwood as the Hooded Man, it had been at the behest of a voice that he could not ignore. He had saved the outlaws' lives that day, freeing them from the trap set by the Sheriff and Sir Guy of Gisburne, but he had not stayed. He had a duty to his family, after all, an obligation – he was his father's only son, and Huntingdon needed its heir. But then there had come Marion, pale and poised, and his father fawning to Owen of Clun and his lords of the Welsh Marches, men who had more in common with rabid wolves than anything else, and Robert's path had been set. Even without Herne's calling, he would not have left Marion in the hands of the Lord of Clun, and if that meant that he would spend the rest of his life hunkering under a bush in a forest, disowned, denied and dispossessed, then so be it. He only wished it did not have to be so damned unpleasant.

The sound of running water slowed Robert's footsteps, and he turned from the narrow deer trail towards the noise of the brook. He came to it on a bend, where the stream had swirled out into a broad pool and the trees grew back from its bank, leaving a clearing of sweet grass in the pale sun. The water was cool and good on his tongue, the grass damp through his rough-spun trews, but Robert paid that no mind. He sat where he was, his bow across his lap, watching the water ripple and swirl its way past, fish rising softly to take the small insects that danced on the surface. He thought of Tuck's fishing line, and wondered where this place was, if he would be able to find his way back here again. The others probably knew it well, most likely even had a name for it. Robert sighed. He had never felt so much the outsider, or so far from what he knew.

Behind Robert, a twig snapped and there came the distinctive _chucka-chucka-chuck_ of a blackbird's alarm call. Someone coughed, quietly. Robert did not turn. So, one of the outlaws had followed him. He wondered who. John, most likely – he seemed the one to play the peacemaker. Irritably, Robert called over his shoulder.

"Well, come on then. Say your piece."

Silence answered him. Turning, Robert saw Nasir standing at the tree line, hands clasped in front of him, waiting. The Saracen lowered his head fractionally as he met the young nobleman's eyes, not quite a bow. Robert paused, then nodded back. As if that was what he had been waiting for, the other man came forward.

He made no particular effort to be quiet, but Robert thought he had heard prowling cats make more sound than this man did. Watching him was like watching a shadow. Considering what the others had told him about the Saracen, Robert supposed that was no surprise. He did not think that a professional killer would last long if he were given to making noise.

Nasir arranged himself comfortably on the stream bank, cross-legged in the grass. He tipped his head to Robert again, as polite as if he were an envoy in some great lord's hall.

"As-salamu alaykum."

Robert blinked. The sound of the words woke faint memories in the back of his mind, memories of his father's stories of the Holy Land and the knowledge they had brought back. He spoke uncertainly, his tongue uneasy with the distantly remembered phrase.

"Wa alaykum as-salaam."

Nasir smiled, very slightly. "That is good. You learned from your …" – a hesitation, as the man seemed to cast about for the right word – "… your teacher?"

"From my father. He crusaded in the …" Realising what he was saying, Robert fell silent. Nasir cocked his head, made a small, placatory gesture with one hand.

"It is a war. Some who fight it are men of honour."

"And some are not." Robert thought of some of the tales he had heard, of butchery and betrayal and trains of prisoners put to the sword. The Saracen made that oddly elegant gesture again.

"Some are not," he concurred, as calmly as if he were commenting on the weather. There was no bitterness in him that Robert could see, no anger or resentment. The young nobleman wondered at that. Perhaps the Saracen was simply very good at wearing his mask. There was something strangely familiar about his restraint.

For a long moment they sat in silence, Nasir watching the stream roll by and Robert watching Nasir. The man seemed as relaxed as a cat in the sun, and just as likely to pounce. He looked as if he had been in the forest all his life, as utterly at home in this place of flowing water and green trees as he had ever been in the desert lands of his birth. Robert felt a moment's sudden envy.

"It becomes easier."

The words broke into Robert's thoughts, making him jump. He frowned at his companion.

"What does?"

Nasir shrugged, a barely perceptible lift of his shoulders. "The woods. The weather. His dark eyes flicked to Robert's, faintly amused. "Will."

"He doesn't much like me, does he? Will he accept me, do you think?"

Another shrug answered that, and a long pause. Finally, "Insha'Allah."

Robert cast the other man a sour glance.

"That's not very helpful."

Nasir raised an eyebrow. Robert laughed reluctantly, relenting.

"I know, I know – As God wills." He sighed, frustrated. " The will of God. I only wish I knew what that His will was. It would make things a good deal simpler."

Nasir said nothing, unsure how to respond to that. Such things as the Creator's great plan were not for men to understand – if Allah willed a thing, so it would be, and that was all. Franks were strange creatures, asking their questions in all the wrong places. He shook his head, waiting.

Robert picked a blade of grass, spinning it in his fingers. "Will's only part of my worries. I've dealt with his type before."

"Will fights," Nasir offered. "He does not know anything else. But it is …" – he lifted a hand, flickering his fingers in the air to demonstrate – "… it is wind and smoke."

"It's not Will. Or not just Will. Or the oods, or the weather, or the fact that I've barely eaten in days." Casting down the now twisted piece of grass, Robert ran a hand through his bright fair hair and pulled a face at the sky. "It's all of this. Everything. There's so much to get used to. It's so different from the life I've known." Robert looked at Nasir, frowning. "Do you understand?"

That won a long cool glance, with a glitter of wry humour in the dark, dark eyes. Robert understood what he was being told without words. Well, of course Nasir understood. This place was different from the life he had known, too – different land, different language, different culture. Robert felt faintly foolish, realising that. Andhere he was, lamenting the loss of feather pillows and servants who did his bidding. Even so, he pressed on.

"It's not just the castle, or being comfortable at night. It's…it's knowing where you fit in the world. Robert of Huntingdon is easy – people respect him, even if only for who his father is. Robert of Sherwood, now…I don't even know who he is."

For a long while, Nasir did not react. Then, when Robert had nearly given up hope that he would speak at all, the Saracen tilted his head a little to one side and said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "He is you."

"I know, but…"

"No, listen. I will tell you a tale." That cut Robert dead. Nasir was notoriously reticent; the young nobleman suspected that the Saracen had used more words already today than he usually would in a week. Part of him wondered if the man used a rationing system: certainly his habitual silence was not due now to a lack of English. His words were oddly accented, perhaps, but they came easily enough.

"In Aleppo, there is a house with cool rooms, and a wide courtyard with suncloth for shade, and a fine fountain, and orange trees that blossom in the spring, and jasmine that sweetens the air at night. There are servants to cook and to bring cool drinks, packed in crushed snow brought down from the mountains of Syria. Wealthy and powerful men gather there, to break bread and to honour one another with their company. There is a bath house, and a rooftop garden where bright birds please the eye. There were other houses, other places, but Aleppo was always my favourite. My father, may Allah the Merciful forgive and keep him and grant him peace, held wide estates, you see."

"You…your father?" Robert looked hard at Nasir, feeling as if some odd veil had suddenly dropped from his eyes. "You're noble born."

"Yes." A small smile. "A minor son of a very great man."

Robert nodded slowly. The restraint, the courtier's manners, the cool, calm mask and the elegant killer's hands… Ah, of course it had seemed familiar. It was nobility that did that, an ingrained education of how to act, what to say, what to hide. He should have known sooner, he supposed. After all, he had suffered that education too.

"In my father's house, I was Malik Kemal," the Saracen went on, almost absently. "Then, in my Brotherhood, Nasir. And now here, and John calls me Naz as if I were a child and cannot say my full name no matter how often I repeat it." Another glitter of amusement went with that. "But I am still who I am. And all of this," he added, taking in the whole of the forest and Nottingham and everyone in it with the barest twitch of one hand, "it becomes easier, if you remember that."

Well. Robert supposed that it would. He thought of the Saracen steadfastly preparing his own food to avoid compromising his beliefs, of how he slipped away during the day to observe his ritual prayers, holding fast to what he knew and what made him who he was, even at a cost to himself. Robert thought he might understand that. Anything would get easier, once one had decided what was important. It was only the first choosing that was hard.

The morning had warmed as they spoke by the stream, the sun gaining heat as it climbed. Now the silence came back, gentle and companionable. Robert felt the morning's conflict ease from his bones, leaving him feeling more sure of himself, and less like a stag caught in a thicket while the hounds closed in. He could do this thing. Herne's Son or Huntingdon, it made no difference: he knew that now. Nasir made no move to leave, only sat where he was in the damp grass and let his eyes close, enjoying the sun on his face. Robert watched him for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet and tapped the other man lightly on the shoulder. Nasir looked up at him, expectant.

"Come on. Let's get back, before John eats everything in sight." Extending a hand, the young nobleman pulled the Saracen to his feet. Nasir inclined his head in thanks. Robert smiled.

"Shokrun," he ventured tentatively. "Shokrun gis … jaz …"

"Jazeelan." Nasir made another tiny bow. "Al'afwan. You are … welcome."

"Tell me, Nasir," Robert said as he shouldered his bow and moved to the edge of the clearing, "what became of the house in Aleppo?"

There was a long pause, but Robert was used to that now. At last Nasir's quiet voice came, sounding unconcerned.

"When my father, may Allah the Forgiving show him grace, died, the house in Aleppo came to me. I own it still, if it stands. I should like to see it again one day, insha'Allah."

Robert smiled at that, and reached out to clap Nasir's shoulder.

"One day, I hope you will. Insha'Allah."


End file.
